Look Who's 6!!!

The birthday girl!!! Gracie turned six yesterday and she was so excited! Before she went to sleep the night before she looked at me and said "I can't believe I'm going to be six tomorrow." She is really beginning to mature since she started kindergarten, and I think six is going to be a good year for her. I'm so proud of the young lady that she is becoming.

This was her requested birthday breakfast. Waffles with whipped cream and bacon. She wanted strawberries, but I couldn't find any at the store. We had to rush through breakfast in order to get to school on time. But she liked it, and declared " I think I will always have my waffles like this." We had to tell her that this was a special thing, and we don't plan on pouring more sugar on top of sugary syrup every morning!

I love these two more than anything in the world!!!

We went out on a limb and got Gracie an IPod for her birthday. The CD player in her room stopped working and so we thought this might be a better way for her to listen to music. I forgot to take a picture of the IDog that goes with it. It's a little plastic dog that is actually a speaker that you plug into the IPod. It was on sale and we couldn't resist. Grace loves to go into her room and listen to music while she plays. She also listens to music to help her calm down when she gets upset. So I think this will be a good present for her. It holds 2,000 songs and several movies. So she can bring it in the van and watch movies. I just hope it's not too much of a present for a six year old. But we all know that Grace is not your average six year old. She was really excited and understood how special of a present it is, so I'm confident she will take good care of it.

This is the most disgusting candy I have ever tasted. It's called Juicy Pop Drop. It's a sucker that you can drop sour liquid onto, and it tastes nasty! Every time we go to Wal-Mart she asks if she can get it, but I told her it was just sugar poured on top of sugar on a stick. I told her she could have it for something special like her birthday. She said she liked it, but I think she was just trying to save face since she has been wanting it for so long. I don't think I will have to worry about her nagging me at the grocery store anymore. (you can see the back of the IDog in this picture. It's so cute)

Gracie was allowed to pick any restaurant for her birthday and she picked.......... BW3's. We couldn't understand why she wanted to go there, but she said that they have good fries and she wanted to play the computer games. At first I thought it was a strange choice, but we ended up having a really good time. The food was good, and she had a lot of fun playing the computer games at the table. I'm looking forward to going back some time.

Daddy and his girls.

Mommy and her girls. Apparently this is my birthday dinner shirt since I also wore it for Scottie's birthday. The funny thing is that I don't even really like this shirt.

After dinner Gracie had to go to choir practice at church. Then we got some dessert before heading home. I didn't make Grace a cake since she took cupcakes to school that day, and we are having a cake on Saturday. She was fine with that, and decided to get Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cupcakes. They were a fantastic choice!!! The cup is made of Belgian chocolate, then cake, then ice cream, then whipped topping. The box we bought had three different flavors: chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream, red velvet cake with cake batter ice cream, and then yellow cake with sweet cream ice cream. They were so good, and the perfect size. It was a great way to end her birthday. I think she really enjoyed her day, and is looking forward to her party on Saturday!

I had to sneak in a picture of Avery in her new monkey jammies. Doesn't she look so cute? Doesn't she look like my brother Curt in this picture? It's starting to get scary! ;)

Pearl - our 24 hour cat

I forgot to mention that we had a cat living on our back deck for 24 hours. It happened about a week before Scottie left for Mississippi. We were talking a walk around the neighborhood after dinner when we spotted a cat walking around. Of course Grace had to stop and pet it, and talk to it, and give us the sad face that said "I really want a cat." But she knows we can't have one where we live right now, so she didn't push it. The only problem was that the cat started following us. We tried to see if it belonged to the people where we found it, but they wouldn't answer the door. (They looked out their window at us, but wouldn't come to the door. That's neighborly love for ya!) So we figured it didn't belong to them. Needless to say it followed us all the way home. Great!

This was Grace's face after we told her for the twentieth time that we were not keeping the cat. She was so sad, it was heartbreaking. Finally we told her she could get some cat food from our neighbor Linda and we would call the humane society in the morning. That seemed okay with her.


The cat, which Grace named Pearl, was still there when she got home from her early start program the next afternoon. I called the humane society, but they weren't open that day. So I called animal control, but I didn't like the way the woman told me that it would be checked out, and if it wasn't adoptable it would be euthanized. She sounded so casual, you would have thought she was telling me the daily specials from a restaurant menu. I know they see hundreds of dogs and cats without homes and unfortunately they can't keep them all, but have a little bit of compassion lady! Needless to say animal control was out of the question. I was willing to pay the $20.00 fee at the humane society because it's a no kill shelter. I had no doubts that this little cutie would be adopted quick.

I mean look at this!!! How cute is this little kitty?

It loved Gracie from the start. We soon discovered that Pearl loved all children. Grace petted Pearl before going to school the next morning and then the kitty just hung out on our deck for a while. By the time I went to call the humane society Pearl was no where to be found. When Grace got home at lunch time she immediately went looking for her. She ended up talking to the neighbors who live behind us. She's a middle aged woman who runs a day care in her home. Apparently Pearl heard the kids and slid through the fence into her yard. She didn't know we had been taking care of it, and gave it to the neighbors across from her. She said they take in strays and either keep them or find homes for them. I could tell that Grace was sad, but she was also glad that Pearl had someone to take good care of her. I'm glad I didn't have to fork over any money for Pearl to have a good home. But I would have, because it would have mattered to Grace.

Thanks Pearl for coming into our lives, and giving us a little bit of joy for a while. I'm glad you found a good home. I hope, when the time is right, we find another kitty as sweet as you!

Avery and Pearl

Avery had a lot of fun looking at Pearl through the sliding glass door. That was about as close as we could let her get to the cat. When we were outside she would grab a big chunk of it's fur and lift the poor cat off the ground. She is one strong baby! But listening to her giggle at the cat is priceless.